(Photo: National Weather Service/NOAA's National Weather Service Collection, Associated Press)

The Great Drought of 2011/2010 is so bad that the federal government has declared Texas a natural-disaster zone. The press is reporting unnerving scenes: Without rain to wash them away, alkali deposits are encrusting power lines and causing blackouts; cattle herds are being decimated due to lack of feed.

Because many of the states damaged by this drought are struggling for cash, also the case during the Great Depression, it's easy to draw comparisons between the current blight and the Dust Bowl of the "Dirty Thirties." But does anybody really remember what that horrid drought, rife with "Black Blizzards" and "Black Rollers," looked like? Check out these historical images from the collection of the National Weather Service and draw your own comparisons. (LINK TO PHOTO GALLERY.)